The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the Phase 1 winners of the 2024 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) program on Thursday (January 4).
What is NASA’s NIAC program?
According to NASA, this program “fosters pioneering ideas by funding early-stage technology concept studies for future consideration and potential commercialization.”
“The daring missions NASA undertakes for the benefit of humanity all begin as just an idea, and NIAC is responsible for inspiring many of those ideas.” says NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, “and NIAC is responsible for inspiring many of those ideas.”
“The Ingenuity helicopter flying on Mars and instruments on the MarCO deep space CubeSats can trace their lineage back to NIAC, proving there is a path from creative idea to mission success. And, while not all these concepts will fly, NASA and our partners worldwide can learn from fresh approaches and may eventually use technologies advanced by NIAC,” he added.
NASA is funding 13 concepts chosen from companies and institutions across the United States in phase one. Each idea will receive a grant of up to $175,000 in total.
List of ideas that won that $175,000 under NASA’s NIAC programme
1. MAGGIE (Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer)
Ge-Cheng Zha Coflow Jet, LLC proposes the Mars Aerial and Ground Intelligent Explorer (MAGGIE), a novel global mobility Mars exploration platform. MAGGIE, a compact fixed-wing aircraft powered by solar energy, will fly in the Martian atmosphere with vertical take-off/landing (VTOL) capability.
2. STASH (Studying Torpor in Animals for Space-Health in Humans)
STASH is a revolutionary approach to interplanetary space travel. Mammalian hibernation has been proposed as a promising way to reduce the physical and mental health risks associated with space travel. Torpor, an energy-saving state characterized by an active and often profound reduction in metabolic rate, is a critical component of this. Ryan Sprenger of Fauna Bio Inc. wants to study this using animals.
3. Expansion of Mars’ Large-Scale Water Mining Operations to Screen for Introduced and Alien Life
The Foundation For Applied Molecular Evolution’s Steven Benner believes that planned human missions to Mars will complicate the search for life on the alien planet. According to this project, dry cached rocks are insufficient, and water mined for human missions can be used to extract genetic polymers (DNA or alien) using a “agnostic life finding” (ALF) system.
4. Swarming Proxima Centauri: Coherent Picospacecraft Swarms Over Interstellar Distances
According to Thomas Eubanks of Space Initiatives Inc. in Florida, a swarm of tiny probes propelled by a laser light could reach another star (Proxima Centauri) this century. This swarm of thousands of probes is capable of sending an optical signal strong enough to send data back to Earth.
5. Sample Return from the Surface of Venus
Venus has the most hostile environment, with temperatures around 450 °C and atmospheric pressure around 92. Mr. Geoffrey Landis The NASA Glenn Research Center has proposed a new method for returning samples from the planet. They intend to use advances in high-temperature technology and solar aircraft to accomplish this.
Other ideas on the list
Thin Film Isotope Nuclear Engine Rocket — James Bickford, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Massachusetts
City Labs, Inc., Florida: Autonomous Tritium Micropowered Sensors — Peter Cabauy
— Kenneth Carpenter of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland: A Lunar Long-Baseline Optical Imaging Interferometer with Artemis-enabled Stellar Image
— Matthew McQuinn, University of Washington, Seattle: Solar System-Scale VLBI Improves Cosmological Distance Measurements Significantly
— Aaswath Pattabhi Raman, University of California, Los Angeles: Electro-Luminescently Cooled Zero-Boil-Off Propellant Depots for Mars Exploration
Magnetohydrodynamic Drive for Hydrogen and Oxygen Production in Mars Transfer, Alvaro Romeo-Calvo, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta
— Lynn Rothschild, NASA Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley, California: Detoxifying Mars: The Biocatalytic Elimination of Omnipresent Perchlorates
LIFA: Lightweight Fiber-based Antenna for Small Sat-Compatible Radiometry (Beijia Zhang, MIT Lincoln Lab, Massachusetts)